Life during covid: Greensburg paramedic recounts virus toll

Editor’s note: This is an occasional series examining how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the lives of members of our community.

The life of a paramedic got a lot harder a year ago, and it hasn’t eased up yet.

“It just causes a normal day to be four times as hard,” said Dan Mertz, director of nonemergency operations for Mutual Aid Ambulance Service in Greensburg.

Mertz and Mutual Aid have helped set up covid testing centers and antibody infusion treatment centers. They’ve responded to nursing homes where the virus has run rampant.

“It seemed like everywhere we went, we pretty much had some kind of dealing with covid,” Mertz said.

Numerous members of the ambulance service were infected, which made maintaining adequate staff on shifts an additional challenge.

Mertz also volunteers with the Greensburg Volunteer Fire Department and helped train his fellow firefighters on best practices to slow the spread of the virus.

Mertz started fire training when he was 16 and has been involved in emergency service ever since.

It runs in the family. Mertz is a third-generation firefighter, as is his brother, Greensburg city Councilman Gregory Mertz. Their father, Roland “Bud” Mertz, is Westmoreland County’s director of public safety.

None of them have ever seen anything like the pandemic.

“It’s been a lifestyle change mostly for us. We expect to be on the front lines for most any disaster that comes our way, but this being a medical emergency, it kind of creates a lifestyle adjustment,” Dan Mertz said.

Paramedics usually spend a lot of time together, but that personal bond was harder to maintain during covid. They stopped eating and drinking together, and in-person team meetings were replaced with digital alternatives.

Thankfully, the end is in sight. Ambulance workers were among the first to have access to a coronavirus vaccine. Most of Mutual Aid’s staff has been vaccinated, Mertz said.

“We took the vaccination really seriously,” he said. “We all felt like it was an obligation to our communities and our families.”

Mertz said he doesn’t plan to dwell on the effects of the pandemic.

“It does take a toll on our minds and bodies, but I only look forward. I don’t look back,” he said. “I just look for new challenges.”